This is, of course, another rushed post from this series, written in order to have a second post this week, and this time around it’s really frustrating, because another band that I considered including here is releasing a new song in a few days, and they don’t have others released within the past year, so it’d have been really wrong to just pick some old songs at this point and I had to set them aside for another time. And then I ended up wondering why another band was on the list at all and found my original idea of making a post for bands from Germany that are already on the list and which have released new material within the past year pretty much impossible, so the third band ended up being quite the opposite.
Either way, the one band that I clearly wanted to include here is Lyriel. In fact, I’ve been meaning to include them in one of these posts for many, many years, but they hadn’t released any new material in almost a decade… Until recently, when they released Odyssey of Dreams, so that has to be my first pick. And, while I’m sure that I listened to more of their songs a long time ago, now I made it easy for myself and only listened to the few older songs that also have videos, going with Leverage as the second pick. Now, while Odyssey of Dreams obviously does, I want to see whether, after such a long time between releases, their new material can at least match the level of their old songs overall… And whether they’ll do something about the fact that, at least based on the few that I listened to today, their songs tend to start rather poorly, so you need to wait out the first part, and you should, the very first impression being unlikely to do them any justice.
Next, Sacred Groove is another German band which released some new material recently, The Secret of the Morning Sun being their newest song, which I’ll select as my first pick. They’re not something to write home about, and the vocals definitely need to be better, but what’s somewhat odd is that on at least a few of their older songs they seem to be, and I’m going to give The Other Side as an example, maybe even more so because the sound quality leaves quite a lot to be desired, and yet it’s still significantly better than the new material, at least in my opinion. It may be a matter of focusing on their strengths, in which case I wonder why don’t they do that far more often.
As for the third band, that’s Silent Wings and I was saying that it’s quite the opposite of what should be included in such posts not just because I stumbled into them many, many years ago and they don’t have any new material released in over a decade, but because they also split up over a decade ago, leaving behind all of two songs, Hic et Nunc and Into the Void, so those obviously have to be my two picks. They did record more and were just about to release an EP, but at the last moment they announced that they won’t be able to do so, because one of the band members left and blocked the others from releasing songs that he was involved in. And shortly after that, after releasing those two songs, the band split up, while their vocalist stopped posting covers on her channel later that same year. But those two songs are great, even more so when they seem to come from what was a new band, with members with little experience, so I think that they shouldn’t be forgotten and it’s a real pity that they couldn’t find a way to continue, in some form or another.
After including Alterium in a previous post from this series, I’ll start this one with Xeneris, which seems to have been founded by the other former members of what used to be Kalidia, which I included in another one of these posts. The two picks will be A New Beginning and Eternal Rising, and I’ll say right away that I definitely prefer Alterium, the vocalists being the most obvious difference, but not the only one. They can still be worth listening to, but while Alterium seems to be more or less picking up from where they left off, it remains to be seen whether Xeneris will catch up and reach a similar level.
The second band is Oknos, which I just happened to be reminded of these days. They do have one video posted within the past year, but don’t actually have recent releases, that song being from their second album, released two years ago… And at this point I wonder whether they will continue, the last visible activity being back in October, when they announced that they needed a new vocalist. So for my first pick I’ll just go with another song from that album, Coming Home, which I like quite a lot, while the second pick will be Burning Heart. They seemed to be on a good path and, even if they will manage to find a new vocalist and continue, there’s a high risk that the change will be a significant setback. But maybe things will work out… Though the fact that their former vocalist seems to no longer have time for this is sad in itself.
The third band, Slaverty, doesn’t have recent releases either, but they definitely belong in such a post because I actually just stumbled into them while writing this and looking into the vocalists used by the project that I meant to include instead. And they are still active and seem to plan to release a second album next year, but so far they just have one album, released in 2020, from which I’ll pick Dreamcatcher, and one more song, Blue, so that will be my second pick, even if it was released two years ago. So let’s see how they’ll continue, because what I listened to just now was quite nice.
It may be terribly inappropriate to turn something like this into another rushed post from this series, but I guess it’s something I can do, and it’ll definitely serve more purpose than just forcing myself to throw a quick comment about something on here just to have a second post this week. So the following two bands aren’t just not new, or even new for me, but also no longer active… And it’s also impossible for them to return to activity, because they were small past projects of a friend of a friend… Who died last week. I didn’t know her personally, but I knew of her, knew that she was quite dedicated to animals in general and cats in particular, and I don’t just mean her own, know that for a while she had a perfume store, and know that she was in these two bands. And I actually liked how they sounded back when I first learned of them, and probably listened to the songs on a few more occasions since then, but for some reason I never even added them on the list until now.
To start with the more recent one, that’s Anima Draconis, which from what I know didn’t get past the stage of a studio project. I’ll go with When We Were Young and Fire Dragon’s Dreaming as my two picks, and I’ll say that it’s quite a pity that they only released a handful of songs, since they sounded promising. Not that something like this matters anymore, at this point, but it may still be worth mentioning, at least in such a post.
The older band, All in Green, seems to have gotten a little further, even if still not that much. The sound is more ethereal, if that may be a proper term for it, maybe soothing would be another, but what’s clear is that it was also promising, and it’s also a pity that they didn’t release more songs. I remember Flying grabbing my attention when I first heard it, but now I kept wondering about the second pick, or more exactly I was wondering whether Don’t Feel would be particularly appropriate under these circumstances or quite the contrary. But this whole thing may be particulary inappropriate anyway, so I’ll just go with it.
Well, I keep wondering whether what’s above is inappropriate or not, but I guess that now I’ll end up making sure that this post as a whole will be, because I can’t just stop at two bands, so I’ll add a third, which recently released its first album. And there is a connection, because I was saying that Monica was a friend of a friend, and after many years away from music, after The Hourglass, which I mentioned many years ago, disbanded, the friend in question was in a band again, which band is now called Nocturnal Eternity, though it was just Nocturnal while she was in it. Yes, I’m using the past tense, because she wasn’t there for long, having recently left the band, but the album was recorded, and while there are a lot of awful growls on most of the songs, Are You the One has none and it’s quite a lovely song, so that’s definitely my first pick. And, to stick to what’s posted officially, I guess that I have to go with Betrayed By His Love for the second pick, even if there are growls on that one, though still far less than on other songs. Either way, the overall sound would deserve far more attention without those growls, but I can still recognize the quality and it’s probably something that can be recommended to those who enjoy or at least can deal with such harsh vocals better than me.
While this new post from this series is once again very rushed, it does at least deserve the title, since I only recently stumbled into all three bands, and in fact only the first one, Birds of a Feather, isn’t a new band in itself. The genre may also not be quite what I normally include in these posts, but the fact that I like the sound shouldn’t come as a surprise either. So I’ll start by pointing you to Fragments, which is their most recent song, while the second pick will be Fly Away. That’s not that old of a song either, and I could and probably should have selected something significantly older as the second pick, plus that a song that features only male vocals is highly unusual for them, at least based on what I listened to, but that one stuck with me, and it took me a while to realize that the reason is that it reminds me of Antichrisis, or perhaps more specifically of the songs released by Sid after the band split up. But this paragraph should be about Birds of a Feather, and despite, or perhaps just because, this second pick isn’t exactly a good example of how they sound in general, I do encourage you to listen to their other songs, because they really deserve more attention. And I’ll also take this opportunity to wish Ryan a speedy and complete recovery, since he seems to be quite ill at the moment.
The second band, Glyph, only recently released their first album, so both of my picks, Honor, Power, Glory and When the World Was Young are from it. This is power metal and all the vocals are male, so that comment about the genre not being what I mostly focus on in these posts but the fact that I like the sound not being a surprise either applies to them as well. And, while there are moments when the vocals could be better, I can say the same, if not worse, about plenty of established bands, and their overall sound is surprisingly good and polished. Or maybe it’s not so surprising, seeing as the band may be new, but its members are experienced, and I guess that it could even be called a supergroup. Either way, they’re an easy recommendation if you have any interest in the genre.
The other new band, who also only recently released their first album, is Tierra Vacia. If the fact that they’re a Christian band and that’s very obvious in the lyrics bothers you too much, you’ll probably want to move along, but the sound is quite nice, at least on some of the songs, my picks being Rumble and Weeping. Since that theme does make me frown a little as well, I won’t comment on their potential and don’t expect to look them up again in the future, but at this moment and just referring to their sound, they caught my attention enough for me to want to include them here. However, I’m editing this in the early hours of Monday to add the fact that rushing this post meant not paying that much attention to the lyrics and, while I can ignore anything else that might bother me, if I’d have noticed the line against abortion from Weeping, which I take particular issue with, I’d have at the very least picked a different song to link to. But now I’m leaving things as they are, just adding this notice, which should also serve as a warning.
If I was saying that the previous post from this series might have been one of the most rushed but nevertheless one that really deserved the title, since it only contained particularly new finds, this one is at least as rushed but definitely far less deserving of the title, the only actual recent find being Shondha, which I stumbled into a month ago, when they posted Queen of the Witches, which seemed interesting enough for a first effort, so that will be my first pick. However, when they released their first album, a week ago, I noticed that the vocals sound “broken”, for lack of a better term, on most of their other songs. Still, I was able to pick a second song, Lone Dreamer, that’s somewhat better, so I could include them here. This one also has some faint male vocals, and while I’m assuming that they’re so faint because they’d definitely be bad if they’d be louder, as they are, they actually help, so maybe they could do this more often, at least until they manage to improve the female vocals.
The next band is Opera Magna, which I initially stumbled into quite some time ago. The fact that they have male vocals already makes them somewhat unusual for me, but what’s far more so is that I decided to add them to the list even though their songs were in Spanish. However, I needed material in English before actually considering including them in such a post, and last year they did release an album in English. It doesn’t include new material, the songs being the English versions of what they released five to ten years ago, in three parts, but I’ll nevertheless select my first pick, Where Once Was Beating My Dark Heart, from it. And, seeing as that can technically count as an older song, my second pick, La Muerte de un Poeta, is from their recent album, even if it’s once again in Spanish. That’s also in order to make it easier for myself, so I won’t have to go through their older releases and select something else, but I checked a couple of those old songs as well and they’re also competent efforts, and they’re all posted officially, so you can listen to them as well and see which you prefer.
As for the last band, Alhena, I wonder whether their recent release, Scarlet, which seems to be their first actual new material in several years, will be enough to reverse Metal Archives’ decision to blacklist them. Either way, I’ll make it easy for myself and go with Like a Doll as the second pick, since that’s the old song that they have a video for. I can see an evolution between the two, so if they are actually going to release more new material soon, it could be even better. But I also listened to parts of some of their older songs and I’d say that those show a fair amount of confidence as well. If you want to check, I can point you to them.
